Bliss
by frazthealien
Summary: One-sided Dean/Castiel, slight angst. Dean and Castiel eat pancakes. Castiel is unsure and Dean is guilty. 5.04 tag of sorts.


**Bliss**

Disclaimer: Not mine  
Spoilers: 5.04 but not major ones  
Warnings: strong language if that offends you…

-o-

It is strange, thinks Castiel, to have existed for millennia and known only the barest details of the world. He knew facts, of course, facts piled upon facts, but there are some things facts cannot describe. Dean has dragged him through a kaleidoscope of warmth and colour and sensation. He has knowledge now, like the first people after the Fall (an early story of humans, whose factual basis has been lost like so much that is not poetic to them). But they felt shame because they knew their sins; Castiel feels no shame and is not sure he knows what sin means any more.

He knows where to find Dean because the brothers have stayed in the same town for days now. Dean is asleep, his head resting on an open book. Castiel is wary of rousing him - Dean may need his sleep - but he has let selfishness determine so many of his actions of late that he does it anyway.

"Hey," says Dean and he does not seem annoyed. He has a red mark on his face from the book, but Castiel does not reckon this worth pointing out.

Dean stretches his arms and yawns. "No luck tracking down the Almighty? 'Cause these murders - I'm startin' to think it's just some sick fuck with a persecution complex. Nothing here's outright demonic."

"I've made no progress," says Castiel. He cocks his head. "Where's Sam?"

"No internet here - pissed off somewhere."

"Is that wise?"

Dean shrugs, but he looks troubled. "Can't be with him 24/7. We'd murder each other." He frowns at himself and quickly gets up. "You want somethin' to eat? I'm starving."

-o-

"I'm having pancakes," decides Dean.

"I like pancakes," replies Cas in the exact same tone of voice he used to inform Dean of the oncoming Apocalypse. Dean's managed to foist pancakes on him before and he's glad that some of his most important teachings have stuck - at least, for a moment he's glad.

"Don't you wanna try something else?"

Castiel mulls over the question for far longer than it's worth. "No," is his answer eventually. "I like pancakes."

Dean isn't sure whether Cas is being funny or exasperating, but he does order them both pancakes.

"S'good we're taking a study break," he says. "Don't know that I'm gonna help anyone by reading that crap. Did you know, in medieval times, they used to eat frog guts to ward off possessions?"

Cas looks intrigued. "No, I did not know that."

"Well, course you didn't, 'cause I just made that up, but you believed me anyway 'cause that's the kind of shit they did do."

Castiel is nonplussed. Dean feels a bit mean to disappoint him. He shakes his head. "Never mind, Cas."

"If anyone can help this town, it's you," Cas says after a pause.

Dean winces a little. Sometimes Cas has so much faith in him it hurts.

"You're quite tenacious," he explains.

"That's good, is it?" asks Dean

"I don't know." Cas frowns. "_I_ think so."

-o-

Castiel is glad of Dean's company. He used to have Jimmy's consciousness, weak and negligible though it was, tied loosely to his own, and he misses that in some small way - but it reminded him that the body he inhabited was not his. To all intents and purposes he has his own body now. This makes him happy, though he is not sure why.

Dean insists on pouring maple syrup (and a lot of it) on Castiel's pancakes for him, and he finds he cannot profess ignorance any longer. Dean found it strange, abhorrent even, that angels should possess anyone, so Castiel found it strange and abhorrent as well.

"Now comes the part where you eat," says Dean, because Castiel has just been staring. "I ain't gonna spoonfeed you."

Castiel finds this amusing, because Dean has had to look after him a ridiculous amount so far. If he were a prouder being then perhaps he would mind.

"Is it good?" he asks; he has noticed that often humans prefer to say something bland and inconsequential over nothing at all.

"Of course it is," says Dean with his mouth full, then swallows. "Something up with you, Cas?"

"There appears to be… something up with you." Appropriating Dean's idiom has become easy for him.

A myriad of expressions flickers across Dean's face before he leans forward to speak - unnecessarily, as the cafe is not very loud. Castiel leans forward too, equally unnecessary though it may be.

"D'you ever think… 'Man, this one decision I gotta make, it could change-'" He stops and sits back in his chair, letting out a hollow laugh. "Hell, it's like I forget sometimes. _Angel_."

Castiel is still leaning forwards. He gives Dean a perplexed look.

"That was your gig, right? Get up, shower, change the fate of the universe, six impossible things before breakfast…"

This only serves to confuse Castiel further; Dean is behaving very strangely this morning. Castiel belatedly notices that his tie has fallen on his plate and is covered in maple syrup. Dean reaches across with a paper napkin. He takes the tie and wipes off the syrup as though Castiel could not work out how to do it himself.

"But I guess you had orders," says Dean. He has a look of concentration on his face; his tongue is caught between his lips as he smiles. It is no genuine, joyful smile but Castiel smiles back anyway.

"The hardest part of doing good is to know what is good," he says, then thinks perhaps he could have phrased it better. "It's easier always to follow orders than to know when to disobey them."

Dean is still scrubbing at the tie and he is close when he looks up again. "Did you know? Do you think you were right?" His face is painfully honest for a second, and there is guilt etched all over it. Then he falls back to his usual guarded self, even shifting away and dropping the tie.

"No, I… I don't even wanna know."

They're in the car and driving to meet Sam before Castiel replies. He has thought long and hard.

"I didn't know," he says.

"Huh?"

Castiel admits that without a context the statement is quite mystifying. "I'm not sure that what I did to save you was right."

Dean pulls the car over to the side of the road. Castiel frowns.

"It's not the sort of conversation I can have while I'm driving," he says by way of explanation. This does not exactly make sense, as Dean has had many important conversations whilst driving, but Castiel chooses to let this pass for now.

"I'm sorry, man," Dean says after a moment.

Castiel blinks.

"Say something."

"I was answering your question. I didn't know that saving you, or helping you, was morally right. I'm still not sure, though admittedly now my options are more limited than they were."

Dean purses his lips. "And I said I was sorry."

"There was no coercion. Well…"

Dean looks out of the window.

"God gave both men and angels free will," continues Castiel, aware that he is treading blindly; he has never been very good at predicting Dean's reactions. "Free will to do what's right or wrong by our discretion. But I didn't think of that."

"I don't get what you're saying," says Dean, but from the way he swallows nervously Castiel is quite sure he does.

"It was wholly for you."

He has expressed this before, but then it did not carry so much weight. Dean tenses up.

"And fuck, it was a mistake."

Castiel does not know what to say, so he says something bland and inconsequential.

"You're almost out of gas."

-o-

It was something Sam said to him the other day, something about Dean's "pet angel", that got him thinking. And God knows, bad shit happens when Dean starts thinking too much.

He can't help it now. After all, Cas shows up all the time, wide-eyed and so eager to follow him - follow him to hell again if he needed to. Dean doesn't doubt for a second that Cas would. He's relying more and more on Dean, who already has way more responsibility than he ever wanted or could cope with. No one should rely on Dean too much. Just look what happened to Sammy.

He's encouraged it, too, tried to look after Cas as if an angel of the Lord couldn't take care of himself. So he's feeling pretty crappy about being his go-to guy, especially what with how useless his "I'mma shoot Lucifer in the face!" initiative is turning out to be.

Then Castiel has to go and hit him with the "it was all for you!" again, as if he'd forget; but what can he possibly say to that?

As at many other important points in his life, Dean screws things up completely by saying what he thinks.

"And fuck, it was a mistake."

Castiel often looks confused, but right then he looks so utterly, stupidly lost that it all hits Dean like a ton of bricks: the staring; the hopeful smiles; future Cas, all wrong and broken and following his monster of a friend so willingly into destruction; and, most damningly of all, the way Cas really has turned his back on his orders and his brothers and his whole damned world for what?

Suddenly Dean is completely exhausted, like he's just collapsing under all the weight of hating himself this much. Cas is saying something pointless about gas but he doesn't listen. He's frozen, hands on the wheel and staring blankly at the empty road in front of them.

"Dean?" says Cas and there's so much concern in his voice that Dean just wants to grab him and shake the stupid out of him. Maybe Cas understands this and maybe he doesn't, but Dean certainly gets it.

Cas _loves_ him.

Dean hasn't figured out if it's the same way he loves his car or Sammy or… some way he's not going to think about right now, but Cas is looking at him all fondly again and he can't take it. He can't let Cas down like he has every other person he's ever cared about.

"You need to go," he tells him. "Get the fuck away from me before…"

But where would Cas go to? Who else does he have any more? And whose fault is that?

In the pause Castiel replies quietly: "Why would I do that?" He looks crestfallen and - guess what - confused. He's probably clueless about how he feels, Dean decides, and wishes he had the same ignorance.

He says what he thinks. "No… we have to stick together, right? For better or worse."

There's no time like the Apocalypse for living in the present. Maybe he'll never get the chance to drag his pet angel to destruction.

Cas smiles brightly and hopefully. Dean wishes he didn't know why.

-o-

Castiel does not know what prompted Dean to change his mind, and equally he has no idea whether setting his allegiance with him is right or wrong.

On reflection, he finds he truly does not care.

-o-


End file.
